Introduction to SWC-JA

The Carpentries Community
in Japan

State of Carpentries in Japan, circa 2018

• Only one workshop held (in English)

• Zero lessons in Japanese

• Zero member organizations

Beginnings of SWC-JA

• Started with Tom Kelley presenting at Tokyo-R meetup

Beginnings of SWC-JA

• Translating lessons was a major goal from the start

Activities

• Translation

• Growing the Carpentries in Japan

  • Outreach
  • Workshops

Translation

• Use translation system designed by David Pérez-Suárez

Translation

• Check translations using GitHub PR review tools

Translation

• Completed R-novice-gapminder, working on git-novice, shell-novice

Translation: Summary

• Green stickies 💚
  • GitHub works well for collaboration
  • Can do translation review in browser
• Red stickies ❌
  • Requirement for git knowlege is a very high barrier to participation
  • Leads to burnout because only a few members can contribute

Translation: Future Plans

• Plan to switch to upcoming “Workbench” format and new translation system

• For more info, see https://joelnitta.github.io/carpentrycon_2022_trans

Outreach

• Members promote Carpentries at their institutions

• Present at lab meetings, meetups

Outreach

• First workshop in Japanese at Univ. of Tokyo in 2019, in collaboration with Beyond AI

Communications and collaboration

• Slack carpentries-ja.slack.com

• Meetings via Zoom 3-4 times per year

• No formal roles

Current status of SWC-JA

• 30 members on Slack (ca. 6 core)

• 1 lesson fully translated

• 1 workshop held in Japanese

• 0 member organizations

Key points

• Translation is a prerequisite

• Online participation key to making workshop possible

• Building a Carpentries community from zero is hard

  • Tough to “sell” the concept (lack of cultural familiarity)
  • Community members not in a position to establish Carpentries in local institutions
  • Need better outreach at higher levels